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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs macmon Network Access Control comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
macmon Network Access Control
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 18.5%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of macmon Network Access Control is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)18.5%
macmon Network Access Control2.6%
Other78.9%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Enhanced device administration hindered by complex deployment and security limitations
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication. They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases. This will give them a roadmap for software-defined access (SDA) use cases and network segmentation. Threat detection capabilities are very weak. Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Yusuf Oezeren - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at MOD IT GmbH
A robust solution that provides protection to effectively control the access to your network
The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly. The interface is user-friendly but, for example, when we have new people starting to work, they never work with NetOne and it is a bit hard to expand in certain places. In addition, when I have to pull the last corrected MAC address, I need to put the space between it in order to find the address. If I don't put it in there, I don't get any resources. This needs improvement. They should maybe add integration with LanSuite. We can include it to see the direct information we get from our LAN Tree. If I click on the MAC address, I will then directly get the hostname, and that will open a tap-in line so I see what the last update was.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Cisco ISE's integration with other external identity servers like Duende is very simple and easy."
"The user experience of the solution is great. It's a very transparent system."
"Without Cisco ISE, we couldn't authorize our users, contractors, and everyone else."
"The valuable feature of the solution lies in its integration capabilities with other applications."
"Using this solution gives us the ability to allow proper access to the network."
"It's great across a distributed network for securing access to all our apps and the network."
"There are a lot of integrations available with multiple vendors. This has made the solution easier to work with."
"The most valuable thing in ISE is the adoption of EAP deep that came in [version] 2.7, so we can do authentication based on user and machine certificates in one authentication."
"We use it with our Cisco switches so we can see which switch it is actually connected to."
"The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me."
"The API is a great way to get information from other tools."
"When we started with macmon we had immediate success, we could see our network and see the devices and could easily go online."
 

Cons

"I would like for the next release to be easier to implement and to limit its dependencies around ISE, Windows, the network as a whole, etc."
"I would like the product to include support for OSVS version three."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"Cisco ISE requires a lot of time-consuming administration."
"A main issue is that the upgrade process, over time, is extraordinarily fragile. Repeatedly, over the past several years, when we've tried to upgrade our Cisco ISE implementation, the upgrade has broken it. Ultimately, we have then had to rebuild it because we need it."
"The support could be faster and the pricing could be reduced."
"Sometimes we face some infrastructure where there are multiple vendors and sometimes the ISE is not the best tool to manage multiple vendor infrastructure."
"Once you purchase the DNA, you will need the SNA then the license, overall it's very expensive."
"The service macmon offers is already great."
"The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly."
"The solution must allow users to filter files based on dates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."
"There are other cheaper options available."
"I don't know too much about the actual pricing on it. The licensing part is pretty straightforward. It's a lot more simple than some of the other Cisco licensing models. In that aspect, it's great."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"The solution is not that cheap."
"It is not that pricey."
"The solution’s pricing is okay."
"If you consider money only, Cisco ISE is not a cheap solution."
"The solution is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
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Also Known As

Cisco ISE
macmon NAC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
More than 1,500 installations in all over Europe in all industries: Stepchange, Volkswagen, Vivantes Healthcare, MBDA Weapons, APS engineering, Alfred Ritter GmbH (Ritter Sport), Haßberg-Kliniken, 1. FSV Mainz 05 eV., Siempelkamp, AEB etc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. macmon Network Access Control and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.